Oct 29, 2013 4:19 PM

I took three cuttings from a plant in someone's garden some time ago and all survived - I now have three lovely little plants, flowering happily in October, which neither I nor any of my friends or neighbours can identify. The leaves are dark green, toothed, and around 6cm long; the flowers (white with dark pink and green centres) are small and roughly 1cm across. Has anyone any ideas?

Hi Jen - yes, it does look like a Veronica, but it doesn't have any hint of blue on the petals, nor does it have prominent stamens like gentianoides. The colour in the centre is definitely pink rather than blue. It must be some other Veronica - but what??

I think your plant is likely to be what used to be called Parahebe catarractae (G.Forster) Oliver from New Zealand. This genus is similar to Hebe and like it I expect that current taxonomic thinking has it sunk back into a huge genus Veronica. It is rather more floriferous than the other Parahebe species which are grown and has longer leaves (>1.5cm).